NATURALIST PROGRAMS IN AMERICAA Preliminary Analysis of a National Survey

Broadcast of field trip in Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado, under leadership of Park Naturalist Raymond Gregg

BY R. C. ROBINSON,
RECREATIONAL PLANNER

With the vast increase in opportunities for outdoor
recreation made possible by the rapid expansion of non-urban parks and
with improved facilities for travel, the countryside and wilderness have
become accessible to most of our people. That large numbers of them are
taking advantage of these opportunities is evidenced by the fact that
attendance at parks has tripled and quadrupled during the last few
years.

Most of the newcomers are rank strangers to the
natural environment. Records of Park use show that more than 90 per cent
of them confine their visits to picnicking and bathing areas and that
they participate almost exclusively in activities familiar to the city
playground, playfield, and park. Few of them venture out on trails. To
most of them, nature is like a book written in a foreign language.

Use of the sort described tends to defeat the primary
purpose for which parks have been established, which is that of
providing people with an opportunity to enjoy nature's beauties and to
satisfy human curiosity concerning the world in which we live.

How to bring about a better use of non-urban parks
presents, then, a problem which deserves the fullest consideration. It
requires the same careful study and planning that has gone into the
selection, planning, and development of such areas. Visitors' eyes must
be opened to nature's handiwork and their appreciation of its beauty
sharpened. This requires a program of interpretation, variously referred
to as nature study, nature appreciation and more lately, nature
recreation. The naturalist service in national parks exemplifies this
type of program, but at best it reaches a relatively small number of the
total annual park users, and the visitors come once or twice and stay
only a few days at the most before returning to their homes, most of
which are several hundred miles away. No matter how well the National
Park naturalists do their job, they can not meet the total public need
for the type of service they are rendering. The program of
interpretation needs to be carried down through state, metropolitan,
county, and city parks into the neighborhoods where it can touch
people's daily living from childhood to old age. The realization of a
program so ambitious in scope requires, as mentioned before, careful
planning followed by energetic and persistent action over a long period
of years.

Planning necessarily starts with a study of the
existing situation. What do we have now? What do we need? What are our
resources? How can we utilize these re sources to accomplish our
objectives? These are the "a, b, c's" of planning. To accomplish the
first of these steps, to find out what we have now, a nation-wide survey
of naturalist programs was undertaken. While its results may be
incomplete in minor respects, it does give an excellent
résumé of the scope of nature activities now being
conducted throughout the country and the contributions being made by the
wide range of participating agencies and clubs.

From the several hundred forms distributed, 167
replies were received. Of this number, only 77 agencies were found to
render public naturalist services adequate in scope to warrant detailed
consideration. Of the remaining 90 forms returned, 22 reported no
program, 17 were from schools and colleges and included only scholastic
activities, while 51 were rejected because the programs were either
insignificant or were not of a public character. Of the 77 agency
programs analyzed, 54 were supported by public funds and 19 by private
funds. Supervisory authority included federal, state, and local park and
recreational agencies, museums of natural history, sanctuaries,
botanical gardens, nature centers, garden clubs, nature clubs and
societies, a hotel and a hospital for people suffering with nervous
disorders. Thirty-three states and the Territory of Hawaii were
represented.

Principal types of areas or centers used for nature
activities included 114 parks and recreational areas, 33 museums, 126
playgrounds, 3 sanctuaries, 1 botanical garden, and the grounds of a
hospital and a hotel. In six instances, the open countryside was the
exclusive area of operation.

Naturalist Party in Acadia National Park, Maine

Fifty-two of the programs operated the year around,
while 25 were confined to the summer months.

Seventy-two agency programs were being conducted
under paid leadership, while five were instrumented through volunteers
from cooperating schools, colleges and other educational institutions.
Altogether, there were 123 full-time and 206 part-time naturalists
employed.

Twenty-eight programs sponsored 233 nature interest
clubs with a total membership of more than 118,000. Twenty-two agencies
published literature regularly, 22 others occasionally and 4 issued both
regular and occasional publications. The mailing list of the 20 agencies
reporting this item included 69,000 persons.

More than 6,000,000 participants were recorded by the
59 agencies listing attendance at museums, nature trails, lectures,
guided trips and field trips to distant points. Of this number, two and
a half million (in round figures) visited museums; 2,114,000 attended
the 14,239 lectures reported and a half-million hiked over nature
trails. Better than 19,000 made field trips to distant points.

While lectures and guided trips dealt with a
comprehensive group of subjects, geology, plants, birds, and mammals, in
the order listed, were by far the more important from the standpoint of
number of lectures and attendance. That human history is being given
considerable emphasis, however, is indicated by the fact that history,
archeology, and ethnology were subjects of more than 4,000 lectures and
6,500 guided trips.

However dry this recital of figures, it provides a
general idea of the scope of public naturalist programs now being
carried out in the nation. To follow up, it appears appropriate to
review briefly the activities of the various types of agencies offering
naturalist services. Let us begin with those closest to where the people
live, those that have their roots in the neighborhood and home, and
proceed from there to the program of the National Park Service.

Probably the closest of all public organizations to
the daily recreational lives of the people are those groups, societies,
and associations that people form to make possible the satisfaction of
common interests. They include such organizations as garden clubs,
Audubon Societies, nature clubs, and natural history associations.
Returns in the nation-wide survey included 20 agencies of this sort but
only 11 offered what appeared to be public naturalist services. The
programs offered by 9 of these 11 were under the direction of paid
naturalists with 17 full-time and 12 part-time leaders conducting
regular schedules of lectures and field trips and supervising museums
and nature trails. The other two agencies carried out fairly
comprehensive programs with volunteers from schools, colleges, and their
own membership. Subjects covered were confined largely to natural
sciences with the principal emphasis being placed on plants and birds.
Eight clubs operated ten nature museums, while five provided nine nature
trails. A few of the clubs used parks and the countryside for their
hikes and lectures.

A check with studies made by the National Recreation
Association reveals (1) that there are literally thousands of
recreational interest groups in the nation of the type discussed above,
most of them functioning through volunteer leaders, and (2) that a
majority of then sponsor outdoor forms of recreation that are closely
related to the natural environment. In most cases, such groups are in
need of facilities which afford them richer and wider opportunities.
They also need the guidance of trained leaders. The closeby non-urban
recreational area, such as the local or state park, can instrument both
these needs; and by doing so, it can extend its influence far beyond its
boundaries. Such groups can become the roots through which its program
of use can grow and become exceedingly rich in content.

The significant fact revealed by returns from four
museums of natural history was the extent to which institutions of this
sort are turning to the out-of-doors in carrying out their educational
and recreational programs. Every one of the agencies reporting conducted
field trips and sponsored a wide range of groups interested in such
subjects as botany, geology, birds, archeology, and photography. Two
museums offered leadership training courses in natural sciences. Through
this sponsorship of interest groups functioning largely under the
guidance of their own leadership, and through training courses for
volunteer leaders, the natural science museum is becoming a valuable
community recreation center and at the same time improving its
educational services.

The local park and recreation system with its
neighborhood playgrounds, its city and outlying parks, offers a splendid
medium for integrating nature into the daily recreational lives of the
people. Because of this fine opportunity, the fact that reports were
received from only 20 metropolitan districts, counties and cities was a
disappointment. It was felt there must be many other public nature
programs offered by minor civil divisions, but upon a close check
against the 1935 report of Municipal and County Parks in the United
States, it was found that, while many urban centers reported nature
trails, zoological parks, arboreta, and wilderness areas, very few,
probably no more than 25, offered interpretive leadership.

A glance at the results accomplished by the 20
agencies included in our survey reveals the possibilities of nature
programs when offered close enough to people's homes for frequent
participation. The 24 full-time and 23 part-time naturalists employed by
these agencies reached directly an aggregate of more than a half-million
persons through lectures, museums, and guided trips. If all urban
centers, counties and metropolitan districts operating park and
recreation programs offered naturalist services that reached the same
average number of persons per system, the annual total participation
would approach 27,000,000 for this group of agencies alone, and when it
is considered that the local recreation system is in a position to reach
all age groups frequently enough to arouse, sustain, and satisfy
interest in nature throughout a life time, its importance in this aspect
of the nation's recreational program is emphasized further.

While its areas are not quite so close to the people
as are those of the municipality, county and metropolitan district, the
state park system, if planned with an eye to the distribution of a
state's population, can fit its program nicely into gaps left by its
minor civil divisions. Primarily the state can and does provide the
large, wilderness type of park beyond the financial reach of the average
local government agency. It has a wider chose of natural resources and,
for this reason, can better round out the ecological pattern of the
state and its physiographic regions. Yet its areas are generally close
enough to the population for that frequency of participation necessary
to sustain interest in nature study, nature arts and crafts, and other
activities which make a recreational use of natural resources.

That states are beginning to recognize these values
in their parks is indicated by the rapid expansion of interpretive
programs on state parks during the last few years. Before 1938, only
four state park systems employed naturalists. Now 15 offer, under
leadership, nature activities as a part of the park's public service. It
should be added, however, that five of the above listed programs are
financed wholly or in part by WPA. In Region One of the National Park
Service (23 states east of the Mississippi River), at least two
additional states expect to employ one or more naturalists in 1941,
while five of the six now providing such services expect to expand them
materially.

In content, the nature programs now being offered on
state parks include both natural and human sciences, with the greater
emphasis being placed on plants, birds, mammals, reptiles, and geology.
Seven of the agencies included history, three archeology, and two
ethnology. All techniques of presenting the interpretive program were
enployed. Twelve state agencies operated 33 museums, 11 provided nature
trails, all of them offered lectures and all but 2 conducted guided
trips, while 4 conducted field trips to distant points. Five issued
literature regularly and 4 occasionally. Altogether, more than a million
state park visitors participated in nature recreation.

One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.
Shakespeare, Troilus and Cressida.

The book of Nature is that which the physician must
read; and to do so he must walk over the leaves. Paracelsus.

It is one and the same Nature that rolls on her
course, and whoever has sufficiently considered the present state of
things night conclude certainly as to both the future and the past.
Montaigne, Apology for Raymond de Sebonde.

Art may err, but Nature cannot miss. Dryden, The
Cock and the Fox.

Nature, the vicar of the Almightie God. Chaucer,
The Assembly of Fowles.

It is the modest, not the presumptuous, inquirer who
makes a real and safe progress in the discovery of divine truths. One
follows Nature and Nature's God. Viscount Bolingbroke, Letter to Mr.
Pope.

Nature is a mutable cloud which is always and never
the same. Emerson, History.

Nature, exerting an umwearied power, Forms, opens,
and gives scent to every flower; Spreads the fresh verdure of the field
. . . Cowper, Table Talk.

While it is believed that an encouraging start toward
a well rounded interpretive program has been made among state park
systems, it should be noted that only 50 of the 891 state parks and
recreational areas now in operation provided leadership during 1940. No
doubt some of these parks are too far removed from population centers
and too poorly used by vacationists to warrant naturalist services, but
by far the majority of them are so situated as to make them ideally
suited for nature programs.

To illustrate, the Swift Creek Recreational
Demonstration Area, near Richmond, Virginia, offers a typical state park
situation both as to resources and proximity to population. A nature
program was started in 1938. During the year from September 1, 1939,
through August 31, 1940, more than 37,000 visitors engaged in one or
more features of the program. Every grade school class in the county in
which the area is situated was brought by school buses to the museum,
craft shop, and trails for natural science activities; community houses,
youth agencies and recreation departments brought numerous groups at
regular intervals. Many parents who came first to bring their children
have become interested participants themselves. Thus the family is being
drawn into the program which includes the following among its
activities: lectures, guided trips, bird feeding, conservation, nature
crafts, basketry, pottery, wood and rustic craft, leaf printing,
weaving, and braiding of natural materials.

The results just described were accomplished with WPA
leaders from the security wage list who had to get their experience and
training on the job. Think what might have been accomplished had there
been a well trained naturalist to plan and promote the program. What has
been done at Swift Creek can be equalled or surpassed in probably a
majority of the 891 state parks in operation. And state park officials
are becoming interested. The Virginia Conservation Commissioner
cooperated in launching the Virginia Institute of Natural History
because, he said "I am looking forward to the day when I can have a
trained naturalist in every one of my parks, and I want this institute
to train them for me." It will be only a matter of time until there are
48 instead of 15 state park departments offering naturalist services to
those who visit their parks.

Let us a little permit Nature to make her own way;
she better understands her own affairs than we. Montaigne, Of
Experience.

Nature teaches beasts to know their friends.
Shakespeare, Coriolanus.

No form of Nature is inferior to Art; for the arts
merely imitate natural forms. Marcus Aurelius, op. cit.

Everything in Nature contains all the powers of
Nature. Everything is made of one hidden stuff. Emerson,
Compensation.

To him who in love of Nature holds Communion with her
visible forms, she speaks A various language. William Cullen Bryant,
Thanatopsis.

Go forth under the open sky, and list To, Nature's
teachings. Ibid.

Death is the ugly fact which Nature has to hide and
she hides it well. Alexander Smith, The Fear of Dying .

All are but parts of one stupendous whole, Whose body
Nature is, and God the soul. Pope, Essay on Man.

I trust in Nature for the stable laws of beauty and
utility. Spring shall plant and Autumn garner to the end of time.
Browning, A Soul's Tragedy.

For many years I was self-appointed inspector of
snow-storms and. rain-storms and did my duty faithfully. Thoreau,
Walden.

Man is Nature's sole mistake. William Schwenck
Gilbert, Princess Ida.

From the above résumé of local
and state park programs it may be seen readily how the situation
obtaining in the nearby, relatively small recreational area differs from
that presented by a national park where most visitors are travelers who
have come for their first and possibly even their only time to stay a
few hours or at best a few days. Those national areas have a much vaster
story to tell and very little time in which to tell it to those who
listen. Their naturalists can arouse latent curiosity but they meet
special difficulties in the attempt to sustain and carry it forward by
the methods which may be followed by the naturalist in a park near its
public. Moreover, most of the visitors possess only a limited knowledge
of natural forces while a large number of those who make up attendance
at local park museums and trails are enthusiastic nature students and
many may even be classed as amateur naturalists.

It is vastly important here, however, to warn against
any under-evaluation of the pioneer service which has been and is being
rendered by national park naturalists. It is they who have blazed the
trail which state and local recreational agencies are following. They
have been the teachers and demonstrators, and, if quantity has not been
a practical component of the program, quality has ever been a vital
compensation. The techniques that they have developed for presenting
nature's amazing-story to an inquisitive public have been adapted to the
different situation presented by the local park.

During 1939, according to records submitted, they
reached five and a half million visitors through museums, nature trails,
lectures, and guided trips. Geology was the subject given greatest
emphasis from the standpoint of lectures and exhibits, but most
naturalists covered all the 12 subjects listed on the report form. Three
issued regular publications while 12 got out nature literature
occasionally. Five reported a distribution of 22,000 copies. Two
reported leadership training, but only one, Yosemite, conducted an
extended training camp.

In connection with leadership training, it is of
interest to know that 25 of the 77 agencies whose programs were
summarized offered one or more leaders' training courses during 1939.
Five forms not included in the summary were received from agencies
conducting nature leaders' training camps for periods of from two to six
weeks, while a number of colleges that sent in forms (also not
summarized) conduct summer camps for advance science students. The April
1940 issue of Recreation listed 16 such training camps that now
operate annually, and this list did not include the Virginia Natural
History Institute course which was started last summer at our Swift
Creek Recreational Demonstration Area. Such training camps should assist
materially in providing leadership for the rapidly expanding naturalist
program since the continued success of the program depends in large part
on the abilities of those who guide it.

Although public schools and colleges were excluded
from this survey, 15 forms were received from educational institutions
and a few sample studies were made of natural science activities in the
educational systems of larger cities. From these studies, it appears
evident that scholastic methods are tending more and more toward the use
of living nature as laboratory material. Grade schools are doing much
the best job in this connection, since they are reaching all their
students; whereas, high schools and colleges reach only those actively
interested. This is unfortunate in view of the importance of adolescence
and part adolescence in the formation of life interests and habits. But
the trend is in the right direction. In a number of southern states
serious consideration is being given to the establishment of
conservation areas as a part of consolidated school plants, such areas
to be used by students for both class work and play and by the
communities as recreational centers.

While it is true that at present there are relatively
few agencies actively sponsoring nature recreation -- when compared to
the number of sports organizations, for example -- it is encouraging to
note the wide range represented by those agencies that do. They reach
all age groups and make possible a rich combination of recreational
pursuits: hiking clubs trying to see and understand what lies along the
trails they follow; garden clubs extending their activities to include
public education on the natural world; youth agencies using nature as an
instrument for teaching reverence for the world and its creatures;
schools going out-of-doors to let the student learn from nature's
laboratory instead of from a dusty dead one created by man within four
confining walls; resort hotels beginning to offer their guests an
opportunity to get away occasionally from the dance floor, the bar, the
bridge table, the competitive sports area, or to trails where they may
exercise a long dormant curiosity concerning the world in which they
live; museums, once thought of in the same category as mausoleums
because all they housed were the cold dead things of nature, becoming
headquarters for groups that go out where vivid life is to be found in
all its natural glory; city playgrounds turning more and more to the
stimulation and direction of the child's innate curiosity concerning the
strange and beguiling nature of a tree, a butterfly, the frog that hops
across its path; conservation agencies teaching instead of preaching
conservation; park departments, city, state and national, seeking to
interpret to a public largely strange to the out-of-doors the natural
wonders and the artifacts of human history, so carefully and
scrupulously set aside and preserved for it.

All these various agencies and groups stepping out
tentatively into this great, new leisure time field - few now but
potentially adding up to an aggregate of thousands - offer the
instruments for forging a national program. They fit nicely together.
The school, the playground, the garden club, the hiking club and youth
agency have their roots sunk deep into the home and the neighborhood
where dormant curiosity can be aroused, sharpened, given initial
direction; the city, county, metropolitan, and, in many cases the state,
park lies close by to accommodate expanding interest, to diversify and
satisfy the interest, while for the increasing millions able to get to
it, the national park in all its rich and varied beauty offers the
climax to the amazing story of creation which was begun back on the
neighborhood playground and school yard.

Sounds like a pipe dream, doesn't it, to think that
some day nature may share a large part of the increasing leisure of the
American public, along with moving pictures, the radio, the automobile
speeding down a road hedged in by billboards, the nation's sports
fields, the hot dog stand, and juke joint?

The democracy we are arming ourselves so feverishly
to defend was also once a pipe dream, as were skyscrapers, talking
machines, moving pictures, and television. Is it unreasonable, then, to
predict that the masses of mankind will one day rediscover that they,
like the trees, the flowers, the crops they grow, have their roots in
the earth, that once again they will understand the proverb that dust
returneth to dust?

(Adapted from an address at the National Park
Service Naturalist Conference, Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona,
November 13.)